But why do you thus so kindly treat me? It were better to let me die of hunger and fatigue; for I know that to-morrow my blood is to be shed: the cold knife is to pierce my heart.'
'It shall not be,' replied Oriana, fervently. 'I have said that I will save you.' And then she raised her sparkling eyes as she heard her father's entrance; and springing on her feet, she darted forward, and caught his arm.
'Father!' she cried--and now she spoke so rapidly and energetically, that Henrich could only guess the purport of her words, and read it in her sweet expressive countenance--'Father! do not slay the white boy. He says that he is doomed to die because his father caused my brother's death. But surely Tekoa's generous spirit does not ask the blood of a child. My brother is now happy in the great hunting grounds where our fathers dwell. He feels no wrath against his slayer's son: he never would have sought revenge against an innocent boy. Give me the captive, O my father! and let him grow up in our lodge, and be to me a playfellow and a brother.'
Tisquantum gazed at his child in wonder, and his countenance softened. She saw that he was moved and hastily turning from him, she approached Henrich, who had risen from the couch, and now stood an earnest spectator of the scene, on the issue of which his life or death, humanly speaking, depended. She took his band, and led him to her father, and again pleaded earnestly and passionately for his life; while the touching expression of his own deep blue eyes, and the beauty of his fair young face, added greatly to the power of her appeal.
I have a little sister at home,' said Henrich--and the soft Indian language sounded sweetly from his foreign lips--'and she will weep for me as Oriana has wept for her brother. Let me return to Patupet, and she and my parents will bless you.'
At the mention of his parents, Tisquantum's brow grew dark again. He thought of Rodolph as the destroyer of his son; and he turned away from the two youthful suppliants, whose silent eloquence he felt he could not long resist.
'Your father killed my young Tekoa,' he replied. 'His fire weapon quenched the light of my lodge, and took from me the support of my old age. Should I have pity on his son?'